Maenad
by Sweet September Storm
Summary: Dietrich had prepared her for all their tricks. He had told her how they strove to confuse, to distract candidates from their rightful loyalty to the Institute and to the Hellfather. He had not told her that they had wings. Loosely based on The Screwtape Letters. Another side of the eternal battle.


**Maenad**

* * *

She figured they would send someone. How could they not? Dietrich had warned her. _"Remember who you are. They'll do anything in their power to confuse you, to make you forget," _he said. _"Remember where you belong. Not with them—never with them. Your side is with us, yes?" _Jane had only nodded and smiled. She wasn't afraid, no matter what stories of betrayal Dietrich and Luc and Andrew brought back to the Institute. There was no danger that she would turn. She had seen the consequences. As well as stories, the others usually brought back the accompanying bodies.

_Pride goeth before a fall, _the enemy did say.

Still, she should have seen it coming. But with all her considerable preparation, she had not anticipated this_._

The door to her apartment was unlocked when she came home that stormy night. Heart hammering against her ribs, she pushed it open. Part of her wanted to run, to call the police like a normal person. The rest of her was stubborn. Like it or not, she wasn't a normal person, and Dietrich would not appreciate cowardice. Best to get it over with while she was ready. _One, two, three_ deep breaths and her nerves steadied. The light was on in the living room. Tossing her keys and coat onto the table, she slipped her phone into her pocket before leaving the hall. Dietrich and the rest of the underlords would want to know as soon as it was over.

"I hope you don't mind, I put the kettle on."

It was a cold voice, cultured with a hint of mirth, and perfectly androgynous. Jane followed the sound. The living room was bright and cozy, curtains drawn against the squall. Rain pinged faintly on the windowpanes and the occasional peal of thunder rumbled in the distance, but besides that the storm went unnoticed. The stranger sat on the loveseat beside the window. _Him?_ Was it a him? The stranger's tailored black suit clothed a slim masculine figure, but the face was smooth and even-featured as a girl's, complete with large doe eyes and long lashes. It was the hair that at last made Jane decide that the creature—for she knew better than to think the enemy would send a _human_ emissary, with her reputation—was at least male. His hair was a surprising shade of dark red, and it curled just above his collar.

The visitor stood and bowed slightly as she entered, a disarming smile on his clean-shaven face. Jane could not help but respect the creature's acting ability; she knew the purpose of his visit as well as he did, but by that smile alone she might well have believed he was genuinely glad to see her.

_Two can play that game._ With an equally insincere smile, she pulled off her heels and settled herself on the sofa across from him. "I would have if you hadn't," she said, rubbing some feeling back into her toes.

"Hmm. I thought as much. Nights like this require a cup of tea."

"Do they? Pity, then. I prefer coffee."

"No you don't."

Her smile widened. She hadn't expected him to be so easy. In truth, she was pleased he wasn't. "Oh, you're rather good."

"I would not be here if I wasn't, Jane."

Jane pursed her lips and pretended to pout. "That's hardly fair, using my name when I don't know yours."

"You wouldn't find it hard to discover if you really wanted it," the stranger said gravely. "As I hear, you are a woman of many talents."

"You hear quite right. Still, I find a little mystery exciting…Mr. Anonymous. If you don't mind, I think for the time being you'll be A."

"You know why I'm here, then."

"Of course I do."

The stranger sighed. "Ah. I see. You are thoroughly fortified against anything I could say to convince you to change your mind."

Jane arched an eyebrow. "Having heard of me, did you really expect anything else? I'm waste of what I'm sure is your very valuable time. Hopeless case, lost cause—just tell them that I'm whatever it is your masters call a candidate that just won't give in. I am, as you say, rather in too deep to turn back now." She waved a hand. "Sorry for the inconvenience."

"It was no inconvenience." He gave her a long look. There was a hint of humor in that look that, though she tried to deny it, troubled Jane. She didn't see anything funny about their situation. Hadn't the creature said he knew who and what she was? In her experience, that knowledge usually inspired more fear than mirth in those she hunted, even if his sort was not her regular target. "And contrary to what you might believe, to my Master there is no such thing as a lost cause," the stranger continued.

"Is that a fact?"

"You might be surprised. There are many things they do not tell you about my Master in that Institute you say you belong to."

Jane folded her legs beneath her and put her hand in her chin. "Really? Well then, off you go. _Surprise_ me."

"Are you asking?"

"Are you offering?"

"Freely."

"Then by all means, do tell. It might be entertaining."

Mr. A smiled. "Don't forget, you asked for it." The intensity of his gaze doubled and Jane met it without wavering. "You think you are beyond forgiveness. You have been told that my Master will not take you, but that He sends his servants out to entrap you anyway. You think my brothers and sisters and I long to lead you to your perdition."

Jane snorted. "I see you have been well informed. Yes, Mr. A; you might be right on that score. Honestly, I couldn't blame them. You know that I've been hunting enemy emissaries in thought and deed for what, ten years now? Mostly of the human variety, of course, but I have been looking to branch out." She crossed her arms and tried for an unsettling smile. "I can't imagine that has endeared me to your kind. Or to your master. I have quite the record."

"Unparalleled in this city, so I hear."

Jane inclined her head. "Thank you."

"That was not a compliment."

"I know. But please, don't let me put you off—you were on such a roll. Do go on. Tell me more about me."

The stranger shook his head sadly. "That is a deep well to uncover, and only my Master can see all the way to the bottom. Still, I know this: you were born with a great gift, this gift of empathy; but you have since twisted it into something it was never meant to be. You were meant to protect those who would serve my Master in rebellion against the Institute, not join it in its campaign to destroy them."

"Well then, I'm afraid your master is behind the times. The Institute won out a long time ago." She shrugged. "I simply picked the winning side. Your master is an awfully bad sport if he begrudges me that choice."

"See, that's where you're wrong, Jane. Yours is _not_ the winning side. And in your heart of hearts I think you know that. You have seen the inner workings of the Institute; you know what sort of 'victory' it is with which they hope to darken the world."

"Yeah?" For the first time, Jane caught note of defensiveness in her voice. It troubled her almost as much as the accuracy of the stranger's words. "Maybe I have. But in the end victory will be victory, and whatever else I've seen, I still say I'm on the winning side. And begging your pardon, Mr. A, but you and yours haven't been able to mount a very impressive offensive."

"Then I fear the Institute has succeeded in blinding you."

"Blinded me? To what, to their power? To the hold they have over the city? I flatter myself to say that I can see those very clearly. Thus my choice."

"No; I don't doubt that. You are well aware of the Institute's power. But in your fixation on the one, you have missed the greater power entirely."

Jane raised an eyebrow. "_Greater_ power? Please. Since when has your master ever lifted a finger to change what happens in this city? You say that he is stronger than the Institute? Very well; let him prove it."

"Tread cautiously, Jane. Many have demanded this of my Master, and none have known what it is they asked. Some have regretted it."

"Then I think your master is quite unreasonable. If he wants me on his side, then I want to understand what it is I'm getting into," said Jane. "Anyone would. Is that too much to ask?"

A laughed. "Oh Jane, of course it is. How does one understand the infinite? It is _exactly_ too much to ask, because the answer is too much to comprehend. And you are wrong; my Master has _not_ abandoned this city. You know that better than most."

Jane felt an almost imperceptible twinge of guilt, which she stifled at once under a flood of manufactured self-satisfaction. As she had told the stranger, she had been hunting the enemy's minions for a decade, using her gift for empathy to root them out even in the most unexpected walks of life. Dietrich and the other underlords at the Institute were very proud of her record. She pointed the minions out; they took care of the rest. It was a neat system. At the very least, it was better than that of their enemies, who they always found in scattered clumps throughout the city, as purposeless as a beehive without its queen. "Your master leaves_ those_ people here and then says he hasn't abandoned it?" A sneer curled her upper lip. "They were pathetic, Mr. A. The lot of them. They didn't even fight back."

A did not take the bait. His expression grew sadder; that was all. "They did fight. You just couldn't see how."

"Right. Well, they lost anyhow. They're dead now."

"That was not losing."

"Yeah, well, you and yours keep telling yourselves that." She uncrossed her arms and stretched. "But you didn't come here to lecture me in the finer theology of martyrdom, and as thrilling as this all is, it is late and I've had a long day. I would like for you to get to the point."

"Very well. Jane, you asked me to tell you more about yourself. You have more than the gift of empathy; you have great strength of spirit. One that would not, I guess, have been easily bowed to the whims of the Institute—except that something happened. Something that, as you might say, forced your hand. Before you began your work as a spy for the underlords, something happened that you believe pushed you out of favor with my Master." A leaned forward and folded his hands under his chin. "Was it the man, the child, or the death of both?"

Jane stood. Despite her best efforts to hide it, she was trembling. What part of it was from rage and what part from grief she couldn't tell.

A looked on her with sympathy but did not stop. "There is wildness in you. It woke when he took your child, and it drove you to hand them over. You could not bear the betrayal, so you in turn betrayed them."

"I did _not_ betray them," she said firmly. "What Simon did to me, that was betrayal. He knew what it meant to serve your master—he knew what it would mean for us—and still he turned. And he took my daughter with him. So no, Mr. A. What I did was not betrayal. What I did was _justice_."

"Do you feel justified?"

Jane was not so sure of her voice to answer him right away.

A rose from the loveseat. He was taller than she had expected. "That wildness of spirit, that passionate, unruly nature you now try so hard to conceal behind smiles and ruthless efficiency—that too is part of your gift. And you fear it. _Maenad _you've called yourself, because you remember how it can destroy. I would say you've made a wise decision in restraining it as often as you have, but I know that wisdom had no part in guiding you. The Institute took an innocent life you loved, destroyed your hope and fed you only despair and vengeance in return. When they want a soul, they have plenty of experience in finding just the right chains to bind it." He smiled, and to both Jane's surprise and revulsion, there were tears in his eyes when he spoke again. "You have been bound for a long time."

The kettle began to whistle. Jane hurried to the kitchen, glad of the distraction. For all his warnings, Dietrich had not told her they would be this good. And A was good. She hated him for it. Yes; she was sure of that now. Jane _hated_ the black-suited stranger in her living room. Beyond even the general Institute-instilled hatred for the enemy and his emissaries, she hated this man—this creature—this _minion_. She hated that he could see straight through her, past and present. She hated that he understood things about her in a moment that she had not dared admit to herself in ten years.

But most of all she hated the tiny, nagging feeling that everything A was saying was the truth.

"Milk or sugar?" she asked, striving to keep her voice light. She would not give her adversary the pleasure of seeing her weaken. "Sorry, I only have black tea."

"Milk, no sugar. Thanks," A replied. Her agitation had not gone unmarked. Nor had her attempts to disguise it. "I see that you are proud, Jane," he said, watching her. "Very proud."

"Oh yeah?" She took a pair of mugs out of the cupboard and set them on the counter with more force than necessary. A carton of milk followed it. She kicked the fridge door shut. "Well, is that a sin?"

"The deadliest."

Now the kettle was screaming in earnest. Jane took it off the burner and poured it into the mugs, wincing as the steam scalded her hand. When she set it back on the stove, the stranger was there, holding open a box of cheap tea from her corner cupboard. Jane narrowed her eyes. How had he known where it was?

A saw her look. "I'm good at finding lost things."

"I see. So then, is that how you know so much about me?" she asked, holding her mug gingerly as she put in a tea bag. She leaned back against the counter, cradling the cup. "Who told you? Andrew? Karina? Di— Daniel?" She stopped short of saying Dietrich. No matter what this man said, she would never doubt Dietrich. Dietrich might be an underlord, but he was still unquestionably her friend. Hadn't he always said so? He had—right from the moment he ushered her away from Simon's execution.

Of course, he had not taken her to Hannah's.

The stranger took the second mug and poured the milk. He stirred it and replaced the carton in the fridge before he answered. "What good would it do to talk to your associates, Jane? They don't know this. They don't know you at all."

Jane could think of nothing to say. Because he was right. Andrew, Karina, Jeong, Luc, Andrea, Thaddeus… No one at the Institute knew those things about her. She barely knew them about herself.

"I'm afraid not even Mr. Wagner could have helped me here. Dietrich does not own you as he thinks he does. And no matter what you believe, Jane, he can never give you peace."

At the sound of Dietrich's name, Jane stopped.

Everything the stranger had said was true. She _was_ proud. She _was_ wild. And no matter what airy arguments he might construct to blind her from her guilt, Jane knew exactly who was to blame for her daughter's death. There was no forgiveness for that, not from the enemy. She had known from the moment she had reported Simon and Hannah to the underlords that there could be no going back.

_If I'm going to hell I might as well go there thoroughly,_ she thought, reaching for the kitchen knife. _Or at least officially. _It was something Dietrich often told her on the nights she lay trembling next to him, wrapped only in a sheet, staring at the ceiling and remembering the bullet that had ended Simon's life. _Revenge is a good tonic against guilt, my little hell-bent,_ Dietrich had said after the execution. _Give yourself to our work, and you'll get over it soon enough. _

Jane had told him she believed him. After ten years, it was nearly true. Simon was a dim memory. Hannah lay locked in her guilty, shriveled conscience, and the only consolation that remained to her was her service to the Institute. The stranger in her kitchen should have known that she was too far gone to save. He should have left Dietrich out of it.

She threw the knife.

That was something else A should have known. She had very good aim.

But Dietrich had forgotten to tell her one other thing. He had warned her of the enemy's cunning. He had told her how his emissaries strove to confuse, to distract candidates from their rightful allegiance to the Institute, to the underlords, and to the Hellfather. He had told Jane how they would try to make her forget where she belonged.

He had not told her that they had wings.

Jane did not even see the stranger move out of the path of the knife. The moment the blade left her hand, he simply stopped being there. The knife buried itself in the wall behind him with a thud. Jane blinked; he had not even spilled his tea. Then she fell back. The air in the kitchen was suddenly full, full of something she felt but could not see. It surged through her mind with the force of an ocean breaker and drove her against the counter, tea sloshing all over her front. What felt like liquid light flowed around her, invisible but pressing on her from all sides, clogging up her lungs and making it hard to breathe. The mug fell from her grasp as the fullness settled around the stranger and grew defined.

It was sharp and cold, brighter than could be borne but hard to see. It burned and blinded her but left her unhurt. Her mind was filled with the sight of feathers and eyes. Feathers of pearly lightning and adamantine joy and the golden glow of the light that came before the sun. Great blazing eyes; ageless, deeper than the universe; sleepless, timeless, and restless.

Since the day she had sold herself to the Institute, Jane could not remember a single occasion on which she had felt true fear. Work was work, and the people she was sent to hunt did not often pose a physical threat. Besides, one or two of Dietrich's men were always on hand to arrest the people she pointed out, and as his men were well armed, she had never felt herself in danger.

In the presence of the thing that had been A, Jane discovered a whole new kind of fear. It was not that she was afraid of what he would do to her—though if he wished it she was sure he could have stripped her spirit from her body and sent it screaming into the Abyss. Fear of that sort only touched her for a moment. But what filled her afterwards was fear of what he _was_. She had spoken of power earlier as if she knew what it looked like. The stranger had tried to correct her, as well he should have. _Here _was power. And more than just power. An overwhelming _rightness_ flowed from the creature. It was not self-assurance, but rather the intense and intimate knowledge that he was, in fact, on the winning side.

Never before had Jane felt so small, so selfish, and so very, very wrong.

She screwed her eyes shut. It made no difference. She could still see him. Though the impossible creature spoke in A's voice, the sound resonated through every fiber of her being. She could see his voice surging around her, just as she could see his form through closed eyelids. "Jane, you know what I am going to say. You knew before I came the choice you would have to make tonight."

"Then why did you come?" she whispered. To speak any louder seemed a gross indecency. The wild thing that had risen inside her at Dietrich's name had fallen tame, terrified of the shining thing that filled, not only her kitchen but also every hidden inch of her soul.

"Because you must know, as my Master does, that you are not—as you say—a hopeless case. The Hellfather does not have your true allegiance yet."

"But the Institute—"

"Is less full of his servants than even he suspects. Take heart, Jane. You have wildness inside you; that is true. Do not be afraid. Though the Hellfather has twisted it thus far to his uses, wildness is not inherently evil. My Master Himself is entirely wild."

_What should I do?_ she thought, for she could no longer speak aloud. It didn't seem to matter. The creature heard. Thousands of ageless eyes crinkled in a smile that pierced her with mirth so pure and potent, she felt at once that it contained in an instant more danger than an eternity of the Hellfather's deepest wrath.

"Dietrich Wagner was not the only one who planned for you to be where you are now when he brought you to the heart of the Hellfather's dominion all those years ago. What should you do, Jane? What you were meant to do at the Institute in the first place, little maenad."

_What is that?_

The creature's fearsome laughter rose like a hurricane until Jane could hardly breathe for joy. "Raise a little havoc."

Then he was gone.

Jane opened her eyes to find that she had fallen to the floor. Certain her legs would not support her if she tried to get up, she sat and stared at the place A had been. There was no dark-suited stranger, no glorious cacophony of wings and eyes and surging laughter. Only the memory and the mug remained, placed carefully on the floor where the creature's feet had been. Jane picked it up. The clay was warm and the glaze shone as if newly fired. She looked inside.

It was empty.


End file.
